A Man Like a Million Stars
by Kanthia
Summary: Conversations about Cell, a backyard wedding, and God shows up for tea.


She's at Gohan's place in the mountains, and the wedding will take place in a clearing behind the house, in the morning. She's sharing his bed. It's not their first time sharing a bed. The afternoon Buu was defeated, she'd boarded the plane bound for his place without thinking too much of it. As soon as they were alone they accepted that they had collided into one another's lives and managed to live long enough to fall in love. Gohan handled her carefully - recognizing that he could kill her if he wasn't careful - and she handled him carefully, realizing that she could hurt him if she didn't pick her words with his life in mind. For the next few months they made a sport of trying to keep one another's company, safely.

He's lying down, his head propped in his left arm, and she's sitting up with a mug of tea. They're chatting, reminiscing, at midnight. Once he took down his walls, Gohan is surprisingly curious: he always wants to know more about her life, and she isn't exactly sure why, because who'd want to know about jet-setting and front-row seats at another martial arts tournament, when he'd been to other planets while she was still learning to read? But she always indulges him, tells him where she'd been when the Saiyans landed (at home), where she was when the Androids appeared on Amenbo Island (at school), where she was during the Cell Games (at home, in their underground bunker). Tonight they're talking about nothing in particular: apple trees, blue grass, deserts and high water. The conversation winds down. She clears her throat.

"Um," she says, faltering. "Hey, Gohan?"

"Yeah?"

"I've always been wondering, I guess, what Cell was like."

"What Cell was like?" He sits up, and something about the moonlight filtering in through the window behind him makes him look lean and hungry. "Gosh, Videl, I figured your father would have told you all about him."

"You know my father, Gohan. He hasn't said a word. It's a bit of a sticking point for him, even now, what happened that day."

Gohan sighs. His smile disappears, and he twists his mouth, looking for words he hasn't used in years. Gohan's vocabulary is immense, much larger than Videl thought would be possible for someone who missed out on at least five years of grade school; he's usually very eloquent. She's learned to pay close attention to the times his vocabulary fails him. "He was polite," he says, finally.

"...Polite."

"Yeah. I suppose that was my father's influence."

She places the mug on a nearby night table, before draping her hands over her knees and bringing them in close. She's wearing one of his shirts and it smells like him, like clean air and wood smoke. "Your father's influence."

"Polite, and arrogant. He was..." Gohan swallows. "Very - nice, nice to look at. You know, he was supposed to be perfect. He had this way of moving. Precise. You know how I can sense energy?" He lies back down, places his hands behind his head. "Cell was a composite of the DNA of me and all of my friends. He felt like everyone I knew at once. It was hard to look at him without feeling the presence of someone I loved. It was hard. It was very hard."

"...Oh." Gohan talks, sometimes, about what it's like to be able to sense energy. Videl can do a little of that now, too - feels a little static in the air when she's near him and his friends. "Hey, Gohan."

"Yeah?"

"What do I - feel like? When you sense me."

Something in Gohan's face relaxes. "You're not as good at hiding it as some of us, or maybe I'm just better at picking you out, but it's like the ocean."

"Like the ocean?" He's smiling, so she smiles.

"Dad's warm. Vegeta's hot, really hot, when he wants to be, and - it's like my mouth is full, when he powers up. 18's the hardest, because she doesn't feel like anything at all but you know she's there. You're like spring. Cool, and soft, and calm, and...refreshing. It's hard to explain."

"No, I think I understand."

(She doesn't really, but there's a lot about Gohan that she's still learning, and will always be learning. Earlier that day she had lunch with Bulma, who talked about a theory she was developing, that Saiyans are part plant, and drink the energy from stars. It made Videl think about the way Gohan glows in the light of the moon.)

* * *

><p>Videl had tried on hundreds of gowns, beautiful silk things that Bulma had special-ordered from top designers, before Chi-Chi put her foot down and pulled out this classic white piece she'd sewn herself. Yeah, the design is a little dated, but Videl's built a lot of respect for her mother-in-law-to-be, and she's honoured.<p>

"I don't get it," her father says as he holds her hand tight, and his grip is hot and sweaty. "When this all happened, I don't get it. But I'm - proud. And I'm happy." He's crying long before Dende puts his lips to a flute and begins an airy little wedding tune, light and soft.

Gohan looks dashing in his suit. He smiles a beautiful soft smile when he sees her at the end of a short walk flanked by fold-out chairs, under a wedding arch filled with pink and green, and as her father lets her go that's when Videl realizes that she's committed to this family of friends for the long haul.

Piccolo officiates - it's one of the few things Gohan had insisted on. He keeps it brief, talks about things he never understood until he met Gohan, things like love. Then there's rings exchanged, a strange Saiyan tradition of placing pinkie fingers between one another's teeth ("It shows trust," Vegeta says, through gritted teeth, "A sentimental thing, which is why most of us never committed ourselves to one partner"), and then congratulations and overturned chairs and a rush of bodies and photos and hugging and every hair on Videl's body is standing up, and a banquet, a feast, more food than she's ever seen in one place.

Somehow she ends up sitting next to Piccolo as the Saiyan men compete over who gets the last of the pork belly. She's drinking coffee, and he's drinking water, and she's nervous; Piccolo always makes her nervous, with his enormous presence and the way he fills in the darkest parts of Gohan's life with light. It's not an easy thing to live up to.

"He's a great man, Gohan's father," Piccolo says, as if Videl doesn't already know. Her father-in-law is licking a piece of meat that Vegeta has his hands on. "No reason for his heart to be as good as it is. All I knew was that I needed to kill him, and when he died, I should have had nothing - no purpose, or reason to live. But then there was Gohan…"

"He talks a lot about the time you spent with him," Videl says. "He's very fond of you, you know."

"Is that so." Not that she'd been particularly curious, but she learns that Namekians blush deep green. "I should have been sent to Hell when I died. Never thought to thank him for that." Then Android 18 leans in and snatches away the pork belly, tosses it over to Krillin, but Trunks jumps in the way and grabs it, eats it whole. People are yelling, at least one suit is ruined, and these are people that Videl could grow old around.

Hours later she's in the Son living room, having been accosted by Bulma and Chi-Chi, wine drunk the both of them. They're talking about terrible things like the physical differences between human and Saiyan genetalia, and what to expect from the pregnancy, and Bulma wants to document all nine months because all things considered she's not sure if a half-Saiyan would be sterile. Chi-Chi goes red in the face and Bulma laughs and laughs and laughs, and Videl thinks that Bulma is the bravest person in the whole world, for plucking a grief-stricken man who only knew how to murder out of the stars, and offering him nothing but love and a future. Theirs is a love like danger, and not an easy life.

She finds Gohan in their room. He lights up when she walks in and starts undressing. "Dad patted me on the back a lot and told me about the crazy things he and mom did when they were younger," he says. "Things like stealing every single apple from a grocery store without realizing it was illegal. Vegeta mumbled something about mating rituals. I'm guessing you didn't do much better?"

She tells him about the thought she had of finding home inside someone's arms, and he tells her that she's beautiful, more beautiful than the whole world. Puts his hands on her. Videl thinks she gets what Bulma was saying about plants, because it's as though the Saiyans brought the stars with them when they came to earth, inside their own bodies, and he shares the universe with her that night.

* * *

><p>"To be honest, all I wanted for him was a normal life," Chi-Chi says the next morning over breakfast, and no-one, absolutely no-one, is talking about what happened at night. "Goten, chew with your mouth closed. Not everyone goes jaunting off into the middle of space when they're six."<p>

"It was to Namek, mom," Gohan whines. Goku mumbles something through a mouthful of food. Goten continues chewing with his mouth open.

"After a while I realized it just couldn't be helped. My boys are like magnets for trouble. Two years from now - oh, I don't know - some intergalactic god of destruction could awaken from his eternal slumber with some unfinished business with the Saiyans, and they'd be all beaten up by dinnertime."

In a way she's right: life keeps happening, whether or not you want it to. But in that moment Videl thinks she gets why Gohan is always asking about her life. Surely a guy who went through puberty training in an empty pocket dimension to fight some evil androids built to kill his dad would be fascinated by the simple, normal life of the daughter of a celebrity.

But isn't this wonderful in its own way, eating breakfast in the woods with a bunch of people who share a secret? Maybe hers is a love like danger, but loving Gohan is easy, and she'll take it over anything else in the world.

"Hey, Videl, you're smiling," Gohan says. "Don't tell me it's because of what my mom just said."

"What? No. Just - thinking about something." She leans over and pecks him on the cheek. Goten makes a gagging noise.

* * *

><p>The Lord of the Heavens, God-King of All Worlds, Supreme Ruler of Creation, shows up for lunch. Chi-Chi puts on an extra pot of tea.<p>

"Sorry I couldn't make the ceremony," he says, over a mouthful of rice. "I was preparing a dead planet called Nijii for new life, and ran into some war-orphans seeking to make it their home. Their planet had been destroyed by Frieza's soldiers some years ago. They gave me fruit as an offering for good fortune and a new beginning, and, well, it would have been rude to refuse. I told them that Frieza had been slain. It seems they had met you on your way to Namek."

"Zeshin and his crew? Wild! I'm glad they're doing okay."

"Indeed. Frieza's reign of terror is finally coming to an end." He turns to Videl. "Congratulations on your matrimony."

Videl has absolutely no idea how to respond. "Thank you, sir," she says, quietly.

"Oh, Kibito-Kai is fine." Everyone laughs, and for a moment, things seem normal. Then Kibito-Kai informs Gohan that his grandfather sends his regards: a man named Bardock, from those parts of Hell they put the real troublemakers. There's unrest among dead Saiyans about these peaceful men and their human wives on Earth, taking their legacy and writing a new story.

He finds her after the meal as she's cleaning dishes, this man who once called himself Shin. "I apologize for the pain we put Gohan through," he says. "If there is anything we can do for you -"

And so she is beholden to a god. Gohan's is a much larger universe than the one she grew up in. "No thanks, sir," the word slipping out before she can correct herself. "I mean, I think all this business with Majin Buu is over, and a little peace and quiet is the only thing I could ask for."

Kibito-Kai nods, then chuckles, as if at a joke. "How strange, that we depend on Saiyans for peace and quiet. We are truly blessed to have lived long enough to see the day."

* * *

><p>She'll never tell him, but she supposes that if he thought about it long enough he'd figure it out: the first time she saw him was on a TV in her father's bunker, when he was twelve.<p>

Certainly without his intention, he'd become a minor celebrity after the Cell Games - never as big as her father, of course. Girls in her class would scribble his face inside hearts, magazines ran articles and quizzes about the few details they had ("do you like wearing capes? Is your favourite colour purple?") and orange shoes had a brief, if obnoxious, rise in popularity. Videl had been going through a phase where she hated everything popular on principle, so she'd never bought into the hype.

And now he's here beside her, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper, the grandson of the lord of the village-under-the-mountain, the boy who killed Cell. Her father had always wanted her to marry royalty. The thought is hilarious.

"Hey, Gohan," she says, over the book she's reading. They'd been talking about putting an extension on his mother's house, and making it their permanent home; Videl loves the idea, but doesn't know if she'll still love it thirty years down the road, when she's old and grey and he's still young and green. (Bulma worries about this, often.)

He looks up. "Yeah?"

"I was wondering." She puts down the book, and pulls her feet up onto the couch. "Did you ever think it would end like this? You and someone else, sitting on a couch and talking about extensions on the house?"

"To be honest, no. Not really." He looks up. "Never really thought about it at all. Y'know, there were the Saiyans, and then there was Namek, and then we were waiting for my father to come home, and then there were the Androids and Cell, and then I had to look after my mother and Goten…"

"Jeez."

"...But I'm glad. I never really had anyone, that I -" He clears his throat. "-That I wasn't afraid of letting down."

"Oh, Gohan."

Kibito-Kai has stayed for dinner, and his presence has drawn more friends into the woods - Krillin and 18 and Marron and Piccolo. She calls her father, who arrives with a bouquet of flowers for Chi-Chi, and Mister Buu in tow. Chi-Chi sighs, smiles, rolls up her sleeves and starts cooking up a storm. She refuses to let Videl help but asks her to serve tea and cookies to the guests.

Piccolo refuses (he only drinks water), as does 18 (she has a solar battery in place of her stomach). Kibito-Kai eats in small quantities to remind himself that he is eternally beholden to the world of the living. Buu makes up for everyone else, though Gohan and his family do their best to keep up. Chi-Chi serves a mountain of food, and Videl has no idea where she got it all from: duck and pork and chicken and rice, scallops and fall vegetables, fried dough soaked in sweet syrup. After dinner Kibito-Kai excuses himself to plant stars in the dust-trail left by a black hole, and Piccolo claps Gohan on the shoulder and departs for the Lookout, and Marron has homework to do. Videl's father asks if she'll come visit Satan City, she tells him she'll think about it. She likes it on Mount Paozu, where gods visit for tea and dinner, and love is the quiet between words.

Yes, of course, she thinks, later that night, as she climbs into bed beside Gohan. Neither of us were looking for something, but both of us needed something, and we found it in each other. Maybe she's humbled. Maybe she's frightened. Maybe she's in love, the kind of love that will last until she's old.

She tells him as much and he's warm like the sun when she kisses down his collarbone. Each day he burns from the inside out, glowing gold, throwing green into her life that was otherwise black and white. He is loneliness and light and death and she is that strange thing people do where they bring each other to safe places. He is fire in space and she is an oasis in the desert. He burns her, she cools him.

In the morning there will be time for small talk and thoughts about the future, but the night is theirs, all theirs.


End file.
